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fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened
it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of
its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the
damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning--when I had slept off the fumes of
the night's debauch--I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of
remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best,
a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again
plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye
presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared
to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be
expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my
old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on
the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling
soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and
irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit
philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives,
than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the
human heart--one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments,
which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred
times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other
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